Opinion
E064496
07-11-2017
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. RAMSEY LOUIS NAJOR, Defendant and Appellant.
Jeffrey S. Benice for Defendant and Appellant. Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, and Theodore M. Cropley, Alana C. Butler, and Kristen Kinnaird Chenelia, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. (Super.Ct.No. FVI1200596) OPINION APPEAL from the Superior Court of San Bernardino County. Eric M. Nakata, Judge. Affirmed. Jeffrey S. Benice for Defendant and Appellant. Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, and Theodore M. Cropley, Alana C. Butler, and Kristen Kinnaird Chenelia, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Following a jury trial, defendant and appellant Ramsey Louis Najor was convicted of assault (Pen. Code, § 240), resisting an officer (Pen. Code, § 69), and evading an officer (Veh. Code, § 2800.1). On September 4, 2015, the trial court sentenced him to three years supervised probation with the term that he serve 120 days in county jail. On appeal, defendant contends the trial court erred (1) in denying his Penal Code section 1538.5 motion to suppress, (2) in refusing defendant's special instruction that the arrest warrant was constitutionally void as a matter of law, and (3) in denying his motion for new trial. Rejecting his contentions, we affirm.
I. PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND AND FACTS
Judge Nakata issued an arrest warrant at the request of the affiant Jon Poole, a Code Compliance Officer for the City of Adelanto, who believed defendant was unlawfully operating a marijuana dispensary. On January 12, 2012, Poole requested, and received, assistance from San Bernardino County Deputy Sheriff Scott Hamilton, who arrived in SMASH (San Bernardino Movement Against Street Hoodlums) uniform: green shirt, black pants, full uniform, "SBCSD" patches on both arms, and "Sheriff" written in large letters on the back. The deputy parked in front of Poole's code enforcement vehicle and waited to talk to Poole.
While waiting, Deputy Hamilton heard yelling from a distance, turned around, and saw defendant walking towards them, "yelling something to the effect of, Go away. Leave me alone. Why are you harassing me?" Deputy Hamilton identified himself and asked defendant how he (the deputy) could help. Defendant said, "I want you guys to go away," and then began walking across the street. Interrupting Poole, the deputy confirmed that defendant was the subject of the arrest warrant. Deputy Hamilton announced, "Stop. Sheriff's Department. There's a warrant for your arrest." Defendant ran to his car and got inside. The deputy followed. He used his weapon to bang on the defendant's window, and grabbed the driver's door handle as defendant proceeded to drive away, dragging the deputy 25 to 35 feet. Deputy Hamilton got into his car and pursued defendant, who was driving at a high rate of speed, causing other cars to yield or move out of his way. The deputy had his lights and sirens activated. When the pursuit ended, defendant refused to cooperate, struggling until he was finally subdued.
After the fact, Deputy Hamilton saw that the warrant was a standard arrest warrant. The trial court took judicial notice of the arrest warrant.
Defendant testified that he was at the dispensary on January 12, 2012. When he arrived, Poole was parked across the street in his vehicle. Defendant claimed that he began to walk towards Poole, but changed his direction when he observed two other cars pull up. He identified the cars as two code officer vehicles and one white car.
Once inside his car, defendant backed it up and then pulled forward onto the street. He was unaware that anyone was present until there was banging on his window. Defendant saw a gun banging on his window, but he did not know it was a deputy, so he drove off. He did not see any cars following him until he saw flashing lights and stopped. Defendant claimed that when he got out of his car, the deputy grabbed him around the neck and threw him to the ground. Defendant maintained that he never saw the deputy or heard him before the banging on his window.
II. DISCUSSION
A. The Motion to Suppress Was Properly Denied.
Defendant contends the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence surrounding his arrest, which was based on an invalid warrant.
1. Further Background Facts.
On October 18, 2012, defendant moved to suppress evidence, including the observations of Deputy Hamilton or any of the others present at the scene, on the grounds the evidence was obtained as a result of the attempt to serve an invalid arrest warrant. The People opposed the motion. At the hearing on November 21, 2012, the trial court determined the arrest warrant was invalid, but heard argument on the People's theory of good faith reliance on the warrant within the meaning of United States v. Leon (1984) 468 U.S. 897 (Leon).
Deputy Hamilton testified that in late December 2011, he accompanied Code Enforcement Officer Poole to defendant's marijuana dispensary for security reasons while Poole issued a citation. Defendant was not there, so Poole cited one of the clerks. On January 12, 2012, Deputy Hamilton received a call to assist code enforcement officers in serving an arrest warrant. He spoke with Poole, who said the warrant for defendant's arrest was signed by Judge Nakata and entered into the system; however, Deputy Hamilton never saw the search warrant before the arrest was made. The deputy knew that a code enforcement officer was not a police officer, and prior to this instance, he had not seen anyone other than a peace officer obtain an arrest warrant.
The trial court determined that Deputy Hamilton had every reason to think the arrest warrant was valid, and thus, he was acting in good faith when he served it. The court noted that the deputy could not be expected to know something the judge signing the warrant did not know, namely, that code enforcement officers did not have police powers in Adelanto, even though they do in other cities. The trial court denied the motion to suppress.
2. Standard of Review.
Our standard of review on appeal from the denial of a motion to suppress is well established. "We defer to the trial court's factual findings where supported by substantial evidence, but exercise our independent judgment to determine whether, on the facts found, the search was reasonable under Fourth Amendment standards. [Citation.]" (People v. Brown (1998) 62 Cal.App.4th 493, 496.) "'"The power of the appellate court begins and ends with a determination as to whether there is any substantial evidence, contradicted or uncontradicted," to support the trial court's findings.' [Citations.]" (People v. Snead (1991) 1 Cal.App.4th 380, 384.) "'Reversal is not warranted merely because the circumstances might also be reasonably reconciled with a contrary finding.' [Citation.]" (Ibid.)
3. Analysis.
Both sides agree that the arrest warrant was invalid. Thus, the issue is whether the situation falls within the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule set forth in Leon and Arizona v. Evans (1995) 514 U.S. 1 (Evans).
In Leon, police reasonably and in good faith relied on a search warrant that was later found to be defective. The court declined to apply the exclusionary rule to suppress evidence seized pursuant to the defective warrant because it would not serve the rule's purpose of deterring police misconduct. (Leon, supra, 468 U.S. at pp. 919-920.) In Evans, an officer arrested the defendant based on information from the computer system that there was an outstanding misdemeanor warrant for his arrest. (Evans, supra, 514 U.S. at p. 4.) Though the officer was acting in good faith reliance on official information, it was later determined that the warrant had in fact been recalled. (Ibid.) The court distinguished between mistakes of law enforcement and those of other agencies and determined that the exclusionary rule's purpose of deterring police misconduct would not be served by suppressing evidence seized pursuant to arrest based on a warrant that had through clerical error still appeared on the computer as outstanding. (Id. at pp. 14-16.)
The reasoning of Leon and Evans applies to the present situation. Deputy Hamilton reasonably and in good faith relied on the arrest warrant obtained by Poole. The defect in the warrant was nothing the deputy could have known about. Thus, the purpose of the exclusionary rule would not be served by applying it here. Any mistake was made by court employees, not by the deputy. Defendant's assertion that there could be no reliance on the warrant because Deputy Hamilton never actually examined it before effecting the arrest is unpersuasive. Even if the deputy had conducted an examination, it would have confirmed what Poole had told him, i.e., that the warrant was signed by Judge Nakata and entered into the system. The deputy was in no position to question the court's order. "[E]xclusion for errors by judges, magistrates, and court clerks cannot be expected to alter the behavior of police officers, who are in no position to question court directives." (People v. Willis (2002) 28 Cal.4th 22, 42.)
For the above reasons, the motion to suppress was properly denied.
B. The Trial Court Properly Refused to Instruct the Jury That the Arrest Warrant Was Invalid.
Defendant contends the trial court erred by refusing to give his special instruction which told the jury that the arrest warrant was not lawful. He reasons this information was relevant in determining the credibility of the witnesses. We disagree.
1. Further Background Facts.
Defendant requested that the trial court instruct the jury on the subject of the validity of the warrant with the following special instructions:
Special Instruction No. 1: "When a declaration of probable cause is made by a peace officer of this state, . . . the magistrate, if, and only if, satisfied from the declaration that there exists probable cause that the offense described in the declaration has been committed and that the defendant described therein has committed the offense, shall issue a warrant of probable cause for the arrest of the defendant."
Special Instruction No. 2: "The arrest warrant issued for the arrest of [defendant] upon the request for the warrant by Adelanto Code Enforcement personnel was not a lawful arrest warrant."
Special Instruction No. 3: "A code enforcement officer of the City of Adelanto is not a peace officer."
Special Instruction No. 4: "A peace officer's conduct in the service of an unlawful arrest warrant is still considered lawful if, under all the circumstances, the peace officer had a reasonable and good faith belief that the warrant was lawful."
The trial court did not find Special Instruction No. 1 particularly relevant, but agreed to give it because it was a correct statement of the law. However, the trial court denied defendant's request to provide the other three special instructions as irrelevant, since it had already ruled the arrest warrant was not lawful.
2. Standard of Review.
"A trial court must instruct the jury, even without a request, on all general principles of law that are '"closely and openly connected to the facts and that are necessary for the jury's understanding of the case." [Citation.] In addition, "a defendant has a right to an instruction that pinpoints the theory of the defense . . . ."' [Citation.] The court may, however, 'properly refuse an instruction offered by the defendant if it incorrectly states the law, is argumentative, duplicative, or potentially confusing [citation], or if it is not supported by substantial evidence.' [Citation.]" (People v. Hovarter (2008) 44 Cal.4th 983, 1021.)
3. Analysis.
Defendant was charged with assaulting, resisting, and evading Deputy Hamilton. "The crime of deterring, preventing, or resisting an officer by force and violence requires that the officer be engaged in the lawful performance of his duties." (People v. Rodriguez (2012) 207 Cal.App.4th 1540, 1543.) According to defendant, Deputy Hamilton's conduct in arresting him was unlawful due to the arrest warrant being constitutionally void. Thus, he asserts that the jury should have been permitted to consider this evidence in determining the credibility of the deputy, Poole, and defendant himself. Not so. "[A]n individual officer's subjective intent does not render an otherwise facially valid warrant invalid at the time it is executed. A warrant is not a personal bill of entry for law enforcement personnel to exercise at their discretion, but rather a court directive to execute a search." (Barnett v. State Farm General Ins. Co. (2011) 200 Cal.App.4th 536, 545-546.) Deputy Hamilton's conduct in arresting defendant was not unlawful because the arrest warrant was facially valid. The fact that it was later determined to be invalid was irrelevant to the deputy's credibility.
Regarding Poole, the manner in which he obtained the warrant was irrelevant to defendant's charge of resisting an officer. Poole's conduct in procuring the warrant does not undermine the fact that a facially valid warrant was issued. Regarding defendant, because he could not have known that the warrant was invalid at the time he resisted arrest, the fact that it was invalid may not be used to justify his actions.
The trial court properly refused to instruct the jury that the arrest warrant was not lawful.
C. The Motion for New Trial Was Properly Denied.
Assuming we agree that the trial court erred in denying defendant's motion to suppress and refusing to instruct the jury that the arrest warrant was constitutionally void as a matter of law, defendant asserts that the trial court's denial of his motion for a new trial and to vacate the judgment constitutes reversible error. Having found no error in the denial of defendant's suppression motion and the instructions to the jury, we conclude the trial court properly denied defendant's motion for new trial.
III. DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
RAMIREZ
P. J. We concur: MCKINSTER
J. FIELDS
J.